Monday, 1 February 2010

A waste of FUC-ing oxygen

Of course it's naive to suggest that none of the triumvirate of cunts with a hand in the new FAC251 venture would be unable to call the odd favour in from a mate over at the Evening News, but seriously - a churnalistic, unquestioning article on the most ripe-for-pisstake venture in Manchester's living memory?

Let's pass the mic to uncle Peter.

"As an older musician now, I feel I do have a responsibility to propagate the new bands, to keep things going in Manchester.

"We, as the Hacienda, get a lot of criticism for trading on the past, but with this place it's all about the future, giving young kids the chances to perform."

Is that right? Ignoring the Factory catalogue number on the front door, here's the opening night's lineup, featuring an 'exclusive' performance by no other than:

So that's 2 bass players, and the backing singer from the Happy Mondays. Together. At last. There's a particular chamber of hell where you can listen to 7 bass players and the rest of the Happy Mondays, in perpetuity. All on whizz. It's free in as well down there, instead of £22.50.

To badly paraphrase Orwell: "if there's hope, it lies in our badly-paid regional journalists" - next time you're dished up such an easy target, consider giving shorter shrift to such a tired idea. Despite all its flaws, the now-defunct City Life occasionally managed it.

While you're thinking about it, why not find another way to write about new music from the city without lazily consulting the same 3 bands as reference point. The city will thank you for it.

15 comments:

I've come across Hooky on numerous occasions where he has had the opportunity to even show a even vague amount interest or give encouragement to new young bands and has generally been obnoxious at every turn... he just couldn't give a monkeys.

bit barrel-scraping this one. good or bad, the opening of this venue IS big news, and to expect scathing criticism in an couple of hundred word article is a bit much. the important articles come a few months in, when the internet/press is full of stories of fighting (just imagine the sheer volume of swaggering arseholes in this place who believe being born near a place makes them awesome) and countless disappointed fools ("wheres me fookin stone roses", "whys there no fookin birds here", and so on).

the real victims in all this are the bright-eyed students who came to manchester uni on the back of 24 hour party people and are all awfully excited about the phoenix emerging. they're forgetting the sheer level of aggro that existed back then (hi drive by shooter! hey there mr football hooligan! word up to all you aggressive ben sherman shitbags!), and that's even WITH the best mdma ever. imagine a venue with an unhealthy dose of the former, none of the latter, gallons of cheap booze, past-their-prime punters with a burning desperate desire to prove a point, a little spindly winding claustrophobic venue, and all the while peter hook is sitting atop his dead horse, milking those crusty udders like how he twists knobs on a mixer while a mixmag covermount cd plays, like some bad baggy panto dad. all signs point toward EXPLOSION

Hook also says; "I speak to a lot of bands from Manchester who say they struggle, as a lot of venues won't let them play unless they sell 50 tickets. They're getting very disenchanted with it all, and that's sad." This is such an insult to the venues of the city and the young and not so young promoters. There are far more good places to play than ever. Has Hook been out in the last fifteen years??? Ruby Lounge and the Deaf Institute are two particularly good places to see bands and they're well run and loads of good promoters use them. It's unlikely that FAC251 will come anywhere near those two venues in terms of provision of live music. Manchester's full of shite bands whinging about how hard life is; they probably rang on Hooky's doorbell in Alderley Edge to tell him so. They're just second-rate, and he's well off the pace.

Why are there so many sad individuals who cannot wait to see this venture fail? Shite bands? They'll still get gigs, while the rest of you are wishing you didn't have to wear a paper hat to work...idiots...

David Sue is a lazy, cynical excuse of a journalist who may as well dash his dictaphone against the Koffee Pot as he has no use whatsoever for it. In his dull-as-dishwater articles it's common knowledge that he makes more "quotes" up off the top of his head than a cowboy roofer. I suppose he has to fulfil his MEN word quotas somehow.

I know at least three individuals/bands who've had words put into their mouth by Mr Sue. Nothing bad, mind, but nothing that they actually said. This may seem a bit off-topic but it looks like the thread was heading this way...

I can speak as one of the bands who has had words put into our mouths in a MEN interview..it wasn't terrible, but it definitely portrayed us differently to how we were and we were baffled about some of the quotes that we didn't remember saying...that's just journalists though in general.

Yeah me too, rather than the actual quotes we made regarding music, he made up a bunch of jokes we'd supposedly said. It's not the dishonesty or the brazen cheek of it that I mind, it's the fact that it wasn't even funny.